VICTIMOLOGY

This paper, a Questionnaire/ Proposal, was written April 10, 2007, for my Crim 220 (Research Methods in Criminology) course; the full title of this paper is: Victimology: How does the Media’s Perception of Crime Victims affect the Public’s Perception of Victimization?

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All too often we hear stories in the media about victims of crime, whether it be victims of homicide, rape, identity theft, robbery, or break and enter at a dwelling house. And we hear of victims in regard to homicide. We hear the perspective of the families of homicide victims, or the victims of a robbery, or victims of rape.

But very rarely do we look at what the public’s perception is of crime victims. The question we need to ask is this: How does the media’s perception of crime victims affect the public’s perception of victimization.

My position is that the public gets their perception of crime victims from the sensationalism of the news media. The perception that the news media gives on crime victims and victimization is the source of the public’s perception on crime victims and victimization. In this paper I will discuss the public’s perception of crime victims and how that perception is linked to the media’s perception of crime victims.

This paper will also attempt outline a proposal as to how we can fill in the gaps by utilize that perception into gaining more support as well as strengthening current support with existing programs for crime victims as well as creating new potential programs to give more support and to allow crime victims to be more involved in the Canadian criminal justice system similar to the policies and programs of the American criminal justice system that give crime victims the right to involvement.

Heath & Gilbert (1996) state that, “one contends we are unaffected by the mass media, but whether the effects are caustic, or palliative, uniting or divisive, or personal or societal is hotly contested” (p. 379).

The theory of cultivation hypothesis provides the back drop for much of the work on television’s effect on fear of crime. Gerbner & Gross (1976) suggest that television is the central cultural arm of American society (Gerbner & Gross, 1976; as cited in Heath & Gilbert, 1996, p. 379).

In regard to fear of crime, Gerbner & Gross suggest that the fear and heightened perceived risk that television may enculture leads to increased acquiescence to and dependence upon established authority (Gerbner & Gross, 1976, p. 194; as cited in Heath et al.).

Gebotys, Roberts, & DasGupta (1988) found that ratings of crime seriousness related to amount of television news viewing, suggesting an anchoring effect caused by the more serious crimes usually targeted by TV news (Gebotys, Roberts, & DasGupta, 1988; as cited in Heath et al., 1996, p. 380).

In summary at least some television programming is correlated with fear of crime for at least some of the viewers. Zillmann, Bryant, Wakshlag, and their colleagues ask the intriguing question “Could the causal direction go from the fear to the viewing?” (e.g. Bryant, Carveth, and Brown, 1981; Tambormi, Zillman, & Bryant, 1984; Wakshlag et al., 1983; Zillman & Wakshlag, 1985; as cited in Heath et al., 1996, p. 380).

That is could people who are apprehensive about crime, seek out crime drama as some sort of coping, calming, or information mechanism? Could there be something reassuring about crime drama or crime news? Or could fright be a positive state, or could it be accompanied by something positive, such as excitement or heightened activity level (Heath et al., 1996, p. 380)?

As Zillman & Wakshlag (1985) suggest, could “crime-phobic persons? selective exposure to crime drama...be characterized as a self-administered behavior-modification program, a program aiming at mastery of scary situations?” (Zillman & Wakshlag, 1985, p. 149; as cited in Heath et al.).

According to Heath et al (1996), the relationship between television viewing and fear of crime is complex. Factors such as the type of programming (e.g. drama versus news), the credulity of the viewer, the extent of justice displayed at the program’s end, and the level of apprehension about crime before the viewing all lead to complex patterns rather than simple main effects (p. 381).

The effects of newspaper crime portrayals on fear of crime, much like television crime portrayals do not appear in neat main effects but, rather, are complex patterns involving the level of sensationalism, randomness, and location of the crime. Unlike television research, newspaper research has not yet focused on the characteristics of the audience, such as degree of crime apprehension, although such research could add greatly to our understanding of newspaper effects. Only a few researchers have taken the next step to the new technologies to fear of crime among the audience (Heath et al., 1996, p. 383).

Heath et al. (1996) concludes that media effects are not simple main effects but rather, involve many moderators. Researchers seeking to understand the relationships between media use and fear of crime need to attend to characteristics of the message, of the audience, and of the dependent measure (p. 384).

The operationalization of fear of crime can vary dramatically, with relationships between media exposure and fear of crime being stronger when societal, rather than personal level fear is measured, when fear of violence rather than probability of victimization is measured, and when fear of urban areas rather than fear of rural areas is measured (Tyler & Cook, 1987; Sparks & Ogles, 1990; Zillmann & Wakshlag, 1985; as cited in Heath et al., 1996, p. 384).

The message is clear, media messages do not affect all of the people all of the time. As we move into an age of ever-expanding technological options in the mass media, we need to recognize that the process is a complex on the human side as it is on the technological side (Heath et al., 1996, p. 384).

Weitzer and Kubrin (2004) states that the public believes that crime and fear of victimization come from various sources and that the media appear to play a substantial role in shaping these beliefs and fears (p. 498). The “evidence on public perception of crime and media distortion of crime news is strikingly corroborative” (Warr, 2000, p. 468; as cited in Weitzer et al., 2004, p. 498).

Most Americans identify the media as their primary source of information about crime - 95 % in one study – and the media may also be a major predictor of fear of personal victimization (Graber, 1980, p. 50: as cited in Weitzer et al., 2004, p. 498).

People’s fear of crime may be influenced by several factors, including their personal victimization, city or neighborhood levels of crime, and mass media coverage of crime (Weitzer et al., 2004, p. 498).

Regarding victimization, some studies find that prior victimization is positively associated with fear (Skogan & Maxfield, 1981; Stafford & Galle, 1984; Tyler, 1984; as cited in Weitzer et al., 2004, p. 498).

Paradoxically, however, most find that persons who have the lowest victimization rates (such as women & the elderly) express the greatest fear of crime, whereas those with higher rates (e.g. young black males) express less fear (Warr & Stafford, 1983; as cited in Weitzer et al., 2004, p. 498).

Regarding type of neighborhood, it appears that radical composition of a neighborhood influences residents’ fear, with residents of minority communities more likely to fear crime (Eschholz, Chiricos, & Gertz, 2003; as cited in Weitzer et al., 2004, p. 498). Another neighborhood factor thought influence fear is the amount of crime or disorder in the community (Covington & Taylor, 1991; La Grange, Ferraro, Supancic, 1992; Lewis & Maxfield, 1980; as cited in Weitzer et al., 2004, p. 498).

According to Weitzer et al. (2004), audience characteristics (race, gender, age, etc.) and experiences (e.g. victimization) may play an important role in how media content is received (p. 499). The field of communication studies has increasingly regarded the reception of media messages as a dynamic process in which viewers actively interpret and perhaps reconstruct those messages in light of their personal backgrounds and experiences (Dahlgren, 1988; Gunter, 1987; as cited in Weitzer et al., 2004, p. 499).

While relatively few studies of media and fear of crime examine audience characteristics, those that do have found that media messages are variably interpreted by persons with distinctive social characteristics (Eschholz, 1997; Heath & Gilbert, 1996; as cited in Weitzer et al., 2004, p. 499). According to Weitzer et al. (2004), in some studies, some media appear to influence consumers’ perceptions, values, and concerns, while other media do not (p. 501).

It is argued that researchers, as well as working at a macro level, need to research at the micro level of textual analysis when researching media (including visual media) in order to understand the framing that contributes to public narratives; hence there is analysis of techniques of (a) defamiliarization and (b) objectification of homicide victims (Peelo, 2006, p. 159).

These are some of the means by which the reader is placed as witness, both apparently ‘experiencing’ crime for personal consumption yet, publicly, allowed to recover (unlike real victims of major crimes). The recognition of a need for micro-level analysis raises questions about the functions of public narratives, particularly in expressing, exploring and containing public or social emotion in an era in which public responses to crime have been placed at the top of a highly politicized crime agenda (Peelo, 2006, p. 159).

The examples of ‘defamiliarization’ and the process of objectifying victims of homicide are used to illustrate how ‘mediated witness’ both allows readers to consume crime yet, as a part of society, distance ourselves from the actual events (Peelo, 2006, p. 160).

As witnesses to the drama, we are invited to focus our attention on and emotionally align ourselves with victims, co-victims, and survivors of homicide. Killing is an event which disturbs greatly, the families of victims, the families of killers, and their surrounding society, and those professionals who work with homicide cases (Peelo, 2006, p. 163).

According to Peelo (2006) the devices of ‘mediated witness’ stir us emotionally as readers and as viewers and, thereby, cause us to feel more fully involved in the actual event (or events) than has been the case (p. 164).

Killing is a threat to social agreements and understanding about how ordinary everyday life functions. ‘Mediated witness’ brings homicide closer to personal experience through the reporting of moments and objects of familiarity which, thereby, becoming grotesque by a process of defamiliarization, and this brings us closer to the chaos and disorder that we fear (Peelo, 2006, p. 164).

Peelo (2006) concludes that “we turn away from the pain of the bereaved and focus instead on conflicting claims as to how society should be run such as crime control versus due process (p. 170).

The argument that mass media exert direct causal effects upon perceptions of crime possesses a certain intuitive appeal. In general, this position seems to follow logically from the three widely accepted assumptions upon which it is based. First, since most people do not have direct personal experience with serious crime, the major source of public thought and feeling regarding crime must be vicarious in nature. Second, the mass media of communication are information sources to which the members of modern society widely attend. Finally, as a number of researchers have documented contemporary North American media contain a substantial proportion of crime-related news and information content (Sacco, 1982, p.476; as cited in Chadee & Ditton, 2005, p. 322).

According to Smolej & Kivivuori (2006), in several academic studies and moreover in countless public debates, the media has been claimed to be one central factor affecting perceptions of crime and increasing levels of fear (pp. 211-212). The main objective is to examine whether crime media are related to avoidance behavior and to fear of crime, when personal and vicarious victimization experiences are held constant (Smolej et al., 2006, p. 213).

People receive information about crime from a number of sources, one major source being the media. However, it is not merely information people receive through the media, but also ideas and concepts concerning criminality (Sorenson & Peterson, 1998; as cited in Smolej et al., 2006, p. 213).

Evidence shows that the perceived reality of the media content, combined with the total amount of violent material, is one central contextual factor affecting fear (Eschholz et al., 2003; as cited in Smolej et al., 2006, p. 214).

Fear of crime has various consequences that must be treated as indirect reactions. Fear produces avoidance behavior and can limit social interaction and transform life-styles (Smolej et al., 2006, p. 214).

Individual attachments to, and status within, a community can have a profound impact on the local crime discourse, shaping both the understanding of the crime problem and the perceived risk of victimization (Walklate, 1998; as cited in Banks, 2005, p. 173).

It becomes difficult to specify just how and to what extent media is affecting people’s lives and sense of place, especially when other individual, social and environmental factors may have as significant a role to play (Heath & Gilbert, 1996; as cited in Banks, 2005, p. 183).

The proportion of people who are in favour of tougher sentencing has increased. The question arises, therefore, as to how people perceive current trends in crime and what role the media play in influencing their judgment (Pfeiffer, Windzio & Kleimann, 2005, pp. 259-260).

For a significant majority of citizens, the presumed reality of public events – their characteristics, their meanings, their implications – is constricted by media institutions. Increasingly, these institutions set the agenda for public discourse (Bennett, 1996; Dearing & Rogers, 1996; Iyengar & Kinder, 1987; McChesney, 1999; as cited in Yanich, 2005, p. 103), and dominate the public sphere – “that realm of social life where the exchange of information and views on questions of common concern can take place so that public opinion can be formed” (Dahlgen, 1995, p. 7; as cited in Yanich, 2005, p. 103).

Proctor, Badzinski, & Johnson (2002) addresses the role of media exposure and attention to media on people’s knowledge and perception of a specific criminal justice policy: Megan’s Law. The purpose of Megan’s Law is for the police to publicly inform citizens when high-risk sex offenders move into their neighborhood (Proctor et al., 2002, pp. 356-357).

These laws, according to Proctor et al. (2002), were primarily designed to increase public safety through state monitored registration and community notification. Implementation of these laws has continued to generate public controversy concerning public safety versus individual rights (p. 357).

According to Proctor et al. (2002), research shows in general that increasing levels of media exposure about crime results in not only greater fear of crime, but also more punitive attitudes toward criminals (p. 362). Conventional accounts of the relationship between human emotions and crime, punishment and social control assume that emotions like anger and hatred are repressed in the operations of criminal law (De Haan & Loader, 2002, p. 249). Roach (1999) discusses Packer’s (1964) two models of the criminal process (p. 671). It is these two criminal process models, ‘crime control’ and ‘due process,’ that my research survey will touch on.

Models serve multiple purposes. They provide a guide to judge the actual or positive operation of the criminal justice system. Packer’s crime control model suggests that most cases end in guilty pleas or prosecutorial withdrawals whereas his due process model suggests that the cases that go to trial and are appealed were the most influential.

Models can also provide a normative guide to what values ought to influence the criminal law (Roach, 1999, p. 672). The crime control model looks to the legislature, as opposed to the courts, as its “validating authority” and accepts the extensive reliance that legislatures place on the criminal sanctions (Roach, 1999, p. 677).

The due process model starts with “skepticism about the morality and utility of the criminal sanction” especially in relation to “victimless crimes” based on consensual transactions (Roach, 1999, p. 680). Just as the legislature sets the tone by criminalizing much conduct in the crime control model, the Supreme Court is the most important institution in the due process model because it defines the legal rights and remedies of the accused (Roach, 1999, p. 682).

REFERENCES

Banks, M. (2005). Spaces of (in)security: media and fear of crime in a local context. Crime, Media, Culture, 1, 169-187. Retrieved February 18, 2007 from Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection database.

Chadee, D.; Ditton, J. (2005). Fear of crime and the media: Assessing the lack of relationship. An International Journal, 1, 322-332. Retrieved February 18, 2007 from Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection database.

De Haan, W.; Loader, I. (2002). On the emotion of crime, punishment and social control. Theoretical Criminology, 6, 243-253. Retrieved February 18, 2007 from Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection database.

Heath, L.; Gilbert, K. (1996). Mass media and fear of crime. American Behavioral Scientist, 39, 379-386. Retrieved February 17, 2007, from Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection database.

Peelo, M. (2006). Framing homicide narratives in newspapers: mediated witness and the construction of virtual victimhood. Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, 2, 159-175. Retrieved February 18, 2007 from Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection database.

Pfeiffer, C.; Windlio, M.; Kleimann, M. (2005). Media use and its impacts on crime perception, sentencing attitudes and crime policy. European Journal of Criminology, 2, 259-285. Retrieved February 18, 2007 from Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection database.

Proctor, J. L.; Badzinski, D. M.; Johnson, M. (2002). The impact of media on knowledge and perceptions of Megan’s law. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 13, 356-379. Retrieved February 18, 2007 from Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection database.

Roach, K. (1999). Four models of the criminal process. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 89, 671-716. Retrieved March 6, 2007, from Academic Search Premier database.

Smolej, M.; Kivivuori, J. (2006). The relationship between crime news and fear of violence. Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, 7, 211-227. Retrieved February 18, 2007 from Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection database.

Weitzer, R; Kurbin, C. E. (2004). Breaking news: How local television news and real-world conditions affect fear of crime. Justice Quarterly, 21, 497-520. Retrieved February 17, 2007, from Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection database.

Yanich, D. (2005). Kids, crime, and local television news. Crime and Delinquency, 51, 103-132. Retrieved February 18, 2007 from Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection database.

QUESTIONNAIRE

Instructions: This questionnaire survey is for both criminology and non-criminology students. This survey is for the age of 18 and older. You are not required to answer this survey. This survey is strictly voluntarily. If you choose to answer this survey please fill out the consent/confidentiality form and return it to the researcher.

For each of the 30 questions select “a” or “b” to indicate your answer. Please choose only one answer for each question. If both “a” and “b” seem to apply to you, choose the one that applies more frequently.

When you are finished selecting answers to each question, please return the survey to the researcher.

1. People who hitchhike should expect to be assaulted in some way.

a) Agree

b) Disagree

2. People who hitchhike tend to be runaways.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

3. People who hitchhike tend to have no money.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

4. Most people tend to feel victims are re-victimized in the criminal justice system.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

5. Most people tend to feel that victims should have free access to counseling services.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

6. Most people tend to feel that victims should have the right to take the stand and make a statement as to how the crime affected him/her.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

7. Most people tend to feel victims should have free legal advice.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

8. Most people tend to feel victims should have free legal representation in criminal proceedings.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

9. Most people tend to feel victims should have free legal representation in civil court.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

10. Most people tend to believe that the current victims’ rights bill should be strengthened.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

11. Most people tend to believe that the various criminal justice agencies should be obliged to inform victims of each step of the process.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

12. Most people tend to believe that the crime control model opposes the Accused’s rights of the due process model.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

13. Most people tend to believe that victim advocacy groups focus on new criminal laws to prevent further victimization.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

14. Most people agree that the policing authorities should be legislated to notify the public when sex offenders are released from prison.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

15. Most people would feel safe when they are notified by the policing authorities that a sex offender has moved into their community.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

16. Most people feel that public safety should override individual rights.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

17. In comparing a number of criminal court sentences most people feel that justice has been denied for the victim.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

18. Most people tend to know what the cause and effect is of the fear of criminal victimization.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

19. Most people know why the mass media instills fear of victimization in the public.

a). Agree

b). Disagree

20. Are you…..….

Male

Female

21. What is your age?

_____________

22. Are you now…….

Married

Widowed

Divorced

Separated

Never Married

23. Are you a……

Full time student

Part time student

24. Are you employed full time? Part time?

Full time

Part time

25. What is your ethnicity?

26. What is the number and age of your dependents?

27. What community do you reside in?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Design

The research design that will be used for this research project is exploratory and relational. Exploratory because there is little or no research on this specific research question. Relational so that the respondent can get a better understanding of the crime victim’s experience.

Research Technique

The research technique to be use for the purpose of this project is the survey method.

Sample Selection Issues

My plan is to sample both criminology students and non-criminology students at UCFV. Students will be selected from an existing random sampling list.

Procedures/Administration of Survey

The procedure will be to, with the permission of each professor, attend the classes and personally hand out the survey.

Ethical Concerns

The ethical concerns for the purpose of this research are age (re: parental consent issues), informed consent, anonymity, and confidentiality.